“So, tell me a little about yourself,” she said between bites.
Zee froze with his utensil halfway to his mouth, his mind blank. What was there to say? “I’m a soldier,” he said, shrugging it off.
Her eyebrows rose, and she tapped her plate with her utensil, the tool making a ting-ting-ting sound. “Everyone has a story.”
“Well then, what’s yours?”
She loaded another bite of food in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “My parents are diplomats. Growing up, I lived a little bit of everywhere. By the time I was an adult, being on a ship felt more like home than either Earth or my father’s planet.”
“Your father’s planet doesn’t have a name?”
She laughed. “My father’s planet has many names. Humans called it HD 85512 b, but my father’s people were broken up into four distinct cultures, all with their own names for the planet. And because they weren’t capable of interstellar travel, it really wasn’t something that came up often. My father called it Ara, though.”
“Your father’s people aren’t capable of interstellar travel?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” She popped her lips on the word. “They were perfectly content to stay on their own world.” She laughed. “Humans, on the other hand, can never leave well enough alone. Our government sent an expedition to set up a scientific colony on Ara, not knowing it was inhabited.”
“I take it that didn’t go well.”
“God, no. My father’s people sent them packing. My father volunteered to come with them, to serve as an ambassador between our peoples. They couldn’t bury their heads in the sand anymore, I suppose.”
What? “Bury their heads in the sand?”
She laughed. “It’s a phrase on Earth based on a common myth. The myth states that the animal tries to hide in the face of a predator by putting its head in the ground.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I agree, and the myth is total bullshit.”
“Bullshit.” He scratched his head. “Shit is excrement, isn’t it? I don’t understand your reference.”
She grinned, shaking her head. “It’s one of several curse words in my language. The big ones are shit, fuck, piss, cunt, tits, and cock, I think.”
He scoffed. “That’s very telling.”
She frowned at him. “How do you mean?”
“They all refer to genitalia in some way or another.”
Her jaw dropped. “Jesus, you’re right.”
He frowned, but assumed she was not calling him Jesus. It must be another pejorative.
Chapter Nine
Zee managed to steer the conversation away from himself until Angus interrupted.
“I have the results of the tech scan.”
He frowned up in the direction of the speaker. Angus had sounded almost gleeful.
Ellie sighed. “What is it, Angus?” Her elbows dropped down on the table, propping her face up on a fist clenched around a utensil. She’d been reaching for another bite when Angus interrupted.
“Well, I took my time, wanting to be thorough,” Angus said. Again, Zee had a feeling Angus was just trying to show off. “Since there are no satellites around this planet, my scans were limited in range, so my results are not a complete representation.”
Of course, spherical geometry. The display across the room changed from a foreign landscape to a topographical map. On it, there were several colored dots, one blue and several red. The blue dot and one of the red dots were close to each other with a cluster of red dots a farther distance away.
“The blue dot is us?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ellie replied.
He walked up to the screen. “And this red dot here must be the vehicle you suspected.”
She walked up beside him, her shoulder brushing his arm. It sent feedback through his entire body. He held his breath, unwilling or unable to move away from her.
He pointed at the larger cluster. “This must be their camp. We can’t tell much from this. Angus?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell what type of technology they have?”
“Not at this distance, no. And the scans would require my databases include details about their technology. Since I’m still trying to compile information regarding this species, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to categorize.”
He nodded, shaking his head and smiling as he realized he’d started picking up mannerisms from Ellie.
“So, what do we do?” Ellie said, looking up at him for guidance.
He poked at the wall. “We need to run surveillance on this site.”
She nodded. “Well, we can’t use the ship. It’s designed for cargo, not stealth.” She chuckled at even the idea of trying to sneak up on someone with the Independence. “It’s too far to walk.” She pursed her lips. “But this,” she said, pointing at the solitary red dot, “if this is a vehicle, we can use it. And it might slip under the radar because it’s their own tech.”
He nodded. “That’s a promising idea.”
“You should bring one of my bots,” Angus chimed in. “It can do scans in my absence, and I can provide data using Ellie’s smart watch.”
“Thanks, Angus,” Ellie said, smiling.
Zee shook his head, suspecting that might have been the first time she’d ever thanked the AI.
Ellie stood in the cargo bay, preparing for the trip ahead of her. She’d changed into more appropriate clothing, then grabbed the adaptive camouflage suit she’d ordered impulsively from a fellow shifter named Rose. When she’d picked it up, she’d asked Rose why she’d developed it. Rose had said, “Well, it comes in handy sometimes.” Ellie had been dying of curiosity, but Rose had refused to say more.
It wasn’t perfect, though. It was a technological dream, creating an EM field that made a person invisible to surveillance equipment. It was something that would have been more useful for her pirate friend, Cass, but she’d certainly had fun with it a time or two. Ellie chuckled in remembrance. She’d freaked Angus out more than once by wearing it.
The suit didn’t work as well live. Though Rose had said it was an updated version, it still gave too much away when she moved.
Scanning her work surface, she grabbed her hydration pack and plugged it into the water supply on the wall. She loved the outdoors, so she kept supplies in a space dedicated to it in the cargo bay. The spot had a flat surface for organizing, cleaning, and repairing supplies, a spigot to refill the water reservoir, and bins and clips attached to the wall to hold all her gear. While the reservoir filled, she grabbed things she thought she might need. Knives, guns, food, some basic tools.
“Good choices,” Zee said over her shoulder, peering at the items she’d placed on her worktable.
Ellie blushed, feeling self-conscious and stupid. Why am I doing this? It’s none of my business. My business is getting the ship back to flying, and I’ve already done that. I could take off this instant and return to my life.
But she didn’t, instead barking back at him, “I’m not an idiot, you know?” She winced at her tone, wishing she could take the words back. Hiding her face, she unplugged the pack from the wall and started checking her gear and either shoving it in the pack, or the pockets and harnesses on her person.
Zee didn’t say anything as she ran through her final checks, lifting her pack onto her back, making sure everything was secured and balanced. Once everything was in place, she grabbed the camo shirt off the worktable and pulled it on. She buttoned it up and activated it and the accompanying pants.
“Impressive,” Zee said, touching the fabric of her shirt. “What is this? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Adaptive camouflage. And not many of them exist.”
His face opened up in surprise. “Did you create it?”
“God, no. I’m not that smart.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” he muttered.
She looked away, double checking all her gear, and nodded when she was ready. They took off.
The hike was immediately different from the one she’d taken on her own earlier. Ellie was tense, the weight of her weapons and pack bearing down on her. Behind her, one of Angus’s bots skittered along, scanning their surroundings. Zee walked ahead of them, his stride long and sure. He moved through the wilderness with a confidence she just couldn’t match as she watched his tail twitch back and forth like a metronome before her.
Looking around, the shade of the canopy seemed darker, more ominous. Ellie’s heart felt heavy in her chest. She kept rubbing the band of her smart watch, resisting the urge to check for updates from Angus. She shook her head. Angus was nothing if not obnoxious. If he had an update, she wouldn’t have to worry about him voicing it.
Occasionally, Ellie looked back, checking how far they’d come, checking to see if she could spot any landmarks, but everything looked the same after no time at all. The trees swallowed up her view of the ship within minutes, leaving only the palm-like trees and the blue underbrush as far as the eye could see.
At least Zee seemed to know where he was going. She took comfort in that, though the thought made her angry and a little uneasy. She’d grown up in the wilderness, damn it! Her father’s home world was nothing but wilderness. They didn’t allow development like on Earth. She’d spent years of her childhood running through the trees with the other kids, avoiding fields of psychotropic maenu and the telltale signs of pyor in the earth, which could take a person’s legs off if they weren’t careful. It didn’t sit well relying on Zee, no matter how capable he was. She could take care of herself.
And it disturbed her that she was even the slightest bit inclined to rely on him. She didn’t know him, had no reason to trust him. Why would she be comfortable following him so blindly after only a few hours? It made no sense, and the urge to jog ahead and take the lead overwhelmed her.
But then he stopped, his big body blocking her view ahead. Ellie crowded up behind him, peeking off to the right to see what had halted his progress.
A vehicle.
They had reached their destination. Ellie stood to the side, contemplating the thing that looked like a space-aged motorcycle, though nowhere near as sleek. Like the species that had created it, it was wide and squat, though it still managed to have aerodynamic design.
Zee walked up to it, squatting down to figure it out. Ellie kept quiet, letting him focus, but she observed as well. She frowned at the characters on its flank that matched the note they’d found. They had similar styling, but were just different enough to imply different meaning.
Had Zee operated anything like this before? She sure hadn’t. Hell, she wouldn’t even be able to pilot her own ship without the AI’s autopilot system for sub-space. She just didn’t have the skills. In a sense, she was a diplomat, just like her parents. She could negotiate with the best of them, and she’d applied those skills to trade, finding the best markets, getting the best prices. While she did some for-hire work, transporting goods from planet to planet, she made her best money by trading in rare goods, which was easy if you were already going between those two places, anyway.
Still, it meant she didn’t hold a lot of hope of figuring out the vehicle before her, at least not without a lot of trial and error. Sure, give her an hour and some decent tools, and she could probably take the coverings off, maybe trace all the components and figure out which controls manipulated which systems and what those systems did.
But she hadn’t brought any tools with her, and she really didn’t want to spend the rest of their daylight tinkering with this monstrosity. She glanced at Zee, reassured that he didn’t seem perplexed, only focused, as he moved about the machine.
After a few minutes, Zee stood up abruptly and hopped on. It took a couple tries, but the engine of the beast roared to life. Unfortunately, it was designed for the much squatter Thunnus and not Zee’s taller and leaner frame. His knees nearly came to his chest, and he could barely reach the controls because his legs were in the way.
Ellie stood there, trying to keep a straight face, trying not to laugh, but he looked ridiculous, like an adult trying to ride a toddler’s tricycle. She bit her lip to keep the laughter in, then tapped his shoulder.
He looked up at her, a little bit of misery in his expression.
“Maybe I should try?”
He nodded and unfolded himself from the seat. Ellie stepped up to the vehicle, grabbing onto one of the handles to heft herself onto the seat. It felt like riding an elephant. She shook her head at her thoughts, but while she felt a little cramped, having to bend her arms to reach the controls, she could manage. She turned to Zee with a smile. “I’ll drive, you shoot?” she said, referencing a favorite movie.
God, I hope there’s no shooting…
Chapter Ten
Zee preferred riding behind Ellie on this stupid vehicle. He could stretch out his legs now, and his thick arms easily wrapped around her waist. Based on the design, he suspected it was intended to function similar to their own fighter ships, with a pilot in one seat and a gunner in the other. A soldier could sit in this second seat without holding on, the aerodynamics of the vessel designed to send the wind above their heads. Being taller, he only felt the barest ruffling of his hair.
Still, he’d taken Ellie’s joke to heart, and he had weapons unclasped and ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He’d already been ambushed once by these bastards. It wouldn’t happen again.
Zee’s fingers flexed against Ellie’s stomach, the rough, stiff texture of the fabric contrasting with the warm woman beneath. His mind turned to shifting his grip and slipping his fingers underneath as he resisted the urge to follow through. What would her skin feel like?
A chirrup from Ellie’s wrist jarred him out of his musings, and she slowed to a stop. Lifting her wrist in front of her face, she said, “We’re close. That was Angus’s proximity alert. We should continue on foot.”
Zee looked around, searching for a good place to park. This planet had a disturbing level of uniformity to the vegetation. Or maybe they just hadn’t found any other ecosystems yet. He hadn’t traveled that far before finding Ellie’s ship. There was only so far he could go on foot.
“There,” he said, spotting a downed tree to their left. They could easily hide their ride among the large fronds on the ground.
Ellie nodded and steered them that way, stopping right before the place he’d indicated. Zee jumped off, moving fronds out of the way so she could pull up right next to the trunk, where they could lay the fronds over the vehicle for camouflage.
Zee got to work as Ellie hopped off, nearly falling face first on the forest floor. His impulse was to go to her. He even jerked in that direction, but he stopped himself, shaking his head. She was fully capable of handling herself and proved it by catching herself on the seat and walking over to help him.
The fronds bit into his palms, scratching against his skin as he dropped each in place. After a few minutes, he could see only the barest evidence of the vehicle before him. The enemy wouldn’t find it unless they tripped over it.
Ellie’s little bot scurried behind her, its little legs leaving tiny grooves in the dirt. He stared at it for a moment, then spoke in a whisper. “Can Angus get a more detailed scan now?”
“I’ll check,” she responded. “Angus? Run a full scan of the camp.” She pulled her wrist away from her mouth and the bot raced off into the underbrush, moving closer to their destination for the scan.
Zee did his own scan. Though his vision was less than ideal in the circumstances, he checked their surroundings for motion, noise. Beams of light peeked through the canopy, messing with his sight. Hacht, he hated daylight. His eyes couldn’t seem to decide how to cope, and the headache that had started the moment they left the ship was getting worse. Pain throbbed through his temples and behind his eyes, the inconsistent light creating halos and shadows where there were none.
Ellie tapped her foot as she rested against one of the larger trunks in the vicinity. Other than that, she kept quiet and still, keep
ing her body facing away from the direction the little bot had run, probably to reduce the chances of being seen. But instinct should have had her facing the opposite way. He’d never met a species that didn’t instinctually hate an enemy at their backs.
Time slid by as Zee idly played with his weapons, checking safeties, unclasping and reclasping holsters, pulling them out and sighting them. He moved through a few less obvious training moves, for some reason self-conscious in front of his civilian companion.
Ellie jerked, standing up from the trunk and whipping her wrist around, checking the display. “Damn,” she whispered. “This display sucks.” She squinted, practically touching her nose to her watch, then pulled back, tapping along it. “From the scan, it’s hard to tell how many there are. I’m seeing a few clusters of what looks like body heat on the Western side of the camp.”
“Western?”
She bit her lip, then squatted down, running her finger in a cross pattern through the dirt. She pointed to the line on the left. “This is west.” Then she moved through the other points on the cross. “This is East, South, and North. Will you be okay if I use those directions in the future?”
“Yes.” He was accustomed to having to memorize information in the field. This would be easy.
“Good. I may use combinations to indicate directions between these points, for example, Southeast would be here.” She again pointed at the dirt, pointing to a space in the lower right quadrant.
“I understand,” he said. “Can I look at Angus’s scans?”
“You can try,” she said with a smile.
He smiled back, then hovered over her arm, switching through screens, memorizing locations and significant information. They stood together, and Zee signaled her to follow him when he finished.
Shifting Cargo (A Shift in Space Book 1) Page 6
